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RCSD Corner: News From the Redwood City School District
Redwood City Teacher Named Teacher of the Year
Shannon Cody, a fourth-grade teacher at Clifford
School in the Redwood City School District, was
selected as San Mateo County’s Teacher of the
Year for 2010.
Cody is recognized as a highly dedicated teacher
who strives to have every student take individual
responsibility for his or her learning and who provides
a positive, nurturing environment within which
they can all make as much progress as possible,
according to a press release by the San Mateo County
Office of Education.
Cody is quick to attribute much of her success
to her close collaboration with her teacher colleagues,
most particularly her fourth-grade teammates —
Linda Costa and Stefanie Tuvignon.
“Each of us teaches language arts and math to
our own class,” she noted, “but on three afternoons
a week we specialize in science, art or social studies
to allow us to focus planning in greater detail on a
single subject area.”
The “rotation” the three teachers have designed
thus allows all students to experience the content
in greater depth and also enables the teachers to
get to know all the students in their grade level.
Cody has chosen to live close to Clifford School,
which allows her to experience the diversity of the
community in other settings and events, such as
sports activities and recitals, in which the students
also participate. Outside of the classroom one of
her greatest passions is running, including both
cross-country and marathons. This allows her to
share with her students the common experience
of training, since many of them also practice and
train for events, and even to switch roles with
them by having them become her supporters as
she strives to achieve a particular goal.
“I cannot count how many times my students
have been my inspiration to run a little faster or
push a little harder, because I want my students
to be proud of me,” she said. “Each day in the
classroom, I try to be the type of teacher who will
motivate them to work a little harder because they
want me to be proud of them.”
Cody began teaching at Clifford in 1997.
During this time she has also served as a member
of the school’s Leadership Team and as vice president
and president of the school site council.
Cody was honored by the San Mateo County
Board of Education May 5. Below is the speech
she gave at the event after receiving the award.
Thank you very much.
Although I greatly appreciate the acknowledgement
this evening, I have to say, it’s hard to be recognized
for this award. It’s hard to be recognized for such
an award when I know I am only one of many,
many dedicated, hard-working, effective albeit
exhausted educators who are out there every day
putting it all on the line. So on behalf of all of us,
who are currently so ready for testing to be done,
thank you!
It would be foolish to stand up here and sing
about how wonderful everything is in education
right now. It would be foolish because I’m quite
sure everyone in this room knows better, and it
would be foolish because anyone who doesn’t know
better needs a serious education! We’re going to
need everyone’s help to get through this battle.
And when I say “we,” I mean “we!” All of us
together.
Because the stakes are high. And the stakes are
sitting in our classrooms and they have big brown
eyes, and big blue eyes, and big green eyes, and
some of them have glasses and some of them need
glasses and some of them have glasses in their
backpacks but forget to put them on even as they
are squinting at us from the front row.
And we all know how much they mean to us.
This crisis is not their fault, and it should not
fall on their little shoulders. So many of those
little shoulders already bear too much. Even with
all their burdens, they’re still there waiting for us.
They’re there to work.
They’re there to learn.
And they’re there to laugh.
And they’re there to heal.
They’re there to make mistakes and to learn
how to keep going.
And they’re there to fall and to learn how to
get back up.
They are there to learn how to push harder
and dig deeper.
They are there to learn how to share, how to
give, how to be generous, patient and kind.
They’re there to create.
They are there to question.
They’re there to discover.
They’re there to discover the world around them.
They’re there to discover who they are.
And they’re there to discover all that they can be.
And we are all here to make sure that even in
these tough times, they have what they need to
make these discoveries.
It’s not about what we want to do; it’s
about what we have to do. We have to make a
difference; we have to make it happen for them.
We have to make a difference because it’s who
we are. We’re educators, all of us, from teachers
to office staff, to principals, to support staff,
to school board members, to administrators,
to county board members, to parents, all of us!
We’re all in this together, and we’re all going to
have to work really hard to make sure these kids
get what they deserve. But, of course, we all know
that already — that’s why we’re here.
So let me say to you, thank you.
Thank you for taking time to acknowledge a
teacher and, through me, all teachers.
Thank you to everyone in this room for all
you’ve done already, thank you all for all you’re
doing now and thank you in advance, because we
have a big job in front of us.
As I’m sure we can all agree, this is a battle we
cannot afford to lose, because those little stakes,
they deserve our best.
The Spectrum 5